Posted by Marc Hodak on March 27, 2010 under Invisible trade-offs | 
Bart Stupak gained recognition–and notoriety–for holding the health care reform bill hostage over his anti-abortion demands. The 11th hour pledge by President Obama in the form of a promised executive order to meet those demands sealed Stupak’s support, and passage of the landmark bill. Stupak’s stance has infuriated folks on both sides of the abortion debate.
The pro-life faction considers an executive order to be a lame bulwark against a law that otherwise allows federal subsidies for abortion, and feels betrayed:
Michigan for Life took away the endorsement he has enjoyed for 18 years.
The staunch liberals, who generally favor abortion-rights, also feel jacked around:
“The fact that he was willing to threaten health-care reform for this narrow, pro-life issue just burned me up, and it had meant he had lied to us.”
Well, this post is not about health care or abortion. It’s about how Stupak will win re-election despite all of the animus directed against him from both sides, including the high-profile defections of powerful supporters.
Read more of this article »
Posted by Marc Hodak on March 14, 2008 under Invisible trade-offs |
Most people are against earmarks, it seems, except those who dish them out.
The political logic of earmarks is impeccable. If you’re a Congressman or Senator, there’s this big pot of money on the table. If you don’t reach into it, others will, and will leave you with nothing. Do you want to be Congressman Can’t Bring Home the Bacon? Individually, congressmen may largely agree on the idea of getting rid of pork barrel spending. It would actually make their jobs easier, more ennobling even, to focus on the bigger issues of state than who should get what from the public trough. But the people with the power to change the system are the ones who benefit the most from it. They have the most control over the pork. They are the most adept at using that pork to maintain their power. They indeed grew up in this system of power for money, and frankly wouldn’t know what to do if it were drastically changed. So, earmarks are ingrained in our politics.
The economic logic against earmarks is just as impeccable. When a congress-critter proclaims that they secured $500,000 for a new Teapot Museum, their constituents may be thinking, “Do we really need this?” But what many of them are also asking is, “How much money did I send to Washington? If I’m getting this little part of it back, why didn’t they just let me keep it and spend it?” In other words, there is probably little to be gained from my congressman spending my tax dollars on some private benefit for me. I’m perfectly capable of paying museum admission, if I’m interested in patronizing. If I’m not, then why I am I being made to pay for it?
Let’s not even get into how constitutionally or morally suspect the earmarks process is.
Some people are fooled into thinking that someone else is paying for the goodies that our congressmen “bring home.” But any reasonably educated person (as opposed to overeducated, perhaps) knows that it’s a little like the person who stole your silverware coming back for a visit bearing a nice gift of a serving fork. Gee, thanks.
Posted by Marc Hodak on July 8, 2007 under Invisible trade-offs |
Isn’t it ridiculous that homeland security funds are being taken away from New York and given to terror targets like Louisville, KY, or Omaha, NE? That’s the understandable reaction of New York politicians.
“Why do they persist in giving money to places that need it a lot less than New York City?” said [New York Senator Charles] Schumer, a Democrat.
“They still just don’t get it,” said [New York Rep. Peter] King, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. “New York is by far the No. 1 terrorist target in the country, and no one else is even a close second.”
As a New Yorker, here is what I don’t get: Why should I expect people from Nebraska or Kentucky to pay for my security in New York any more than one should expect me in New York to pay for security in Nebraska or Kentucky? In other words, why should these tax dollars be funneled through Washington at all? It’s not like New York is a poor state. It’s not as if New Yorkers don’t choose to live there, acutely conscious of the risks of terrorism. It’s not like God said that New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers in middle America are bound to cross-subsidize each other on matters of local protection, even from foreign enemies. Politicians playing God have decreed that, but it doesn’t mean it has to be that way.
Everyone knows that the only reason Kentucky or Nebraska is getting Homeland Security funds at all, which include taxes collected from Kentuckians and Nebraskans as well as New Yorkers, is that (1) every state has representation in Congress, (2) Congressional representatives are in the business of getting the most for their respective constituencies, and (3) by just saying the right thing like, “Hey, terrorists can strike ANYWHERE,” congressmen can enlarge that tax pool, then dip into it to spread the wealth around. That’s what politicians do.
Now, I can see that if New York, or any state, were being attacked by a foreign army then, yeah, we all chip in for the common defense. I’m sure President Bush and the fear-mongering hawks on both sides of the aisle will say, “Well, Hodak doesn’t get it. This IS a war! Anyone who wants to treat terrorism as a criminal matter is basically surrendering to the enemy.”
Hmm, “war” or “criminal matter?” Politicians benefit from eliminating useful distinctions, like the possibility that the fight against terror could be viewed as both a war and a criminal matter. If they bought into that distinction, then they could allocate money to the military for the “war” aspect of this fight, i.e., hitting terrorist bases in Afghanistan or wherever, and allow the states to carry on the domestic, “criminal” aspects of the fight, like car bombs and shootings, ideally coordinating with the Feds rather than getting into pissing matches over turf.
In other word, they don’t have to funnel all that homeland security money through Homeland Security in Washington. Congress could allow local politicians to raise what they need locally to defend their localities from acts that are materially indistinguishable from crimes. In other words, we don’t have to impose a beggar-thy-neighbor system for local spending. Congress doesn’t have to bribe us with our own money to do what we need to in order to defend ourselves.
